“For the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in
the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from
time, from man, but one with them, and proceedeth obviously from the
same source whence their life and being also proceedeth. We first
share the life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as
appearances in nature, and forget that we have thought. Here is the
fountain of action and the fountain of thought. Here are the lungs of
that inspiration which giveth man wisdom…”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

Lucía Rodríguez:

Although the reference to Leaves of Grass may be quite obvious, this image is actually a reminder of a passage in “Song of Myself” that I have always considered of utmost beauty, when the speaker is conversing with a child on the meaning of grass, and he reaches a charming conclusion: “And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves” (110).

Etzel Hinojosa:

The other day, just as I was arriving home, one of my roomates was watching Hey Arnold!, an old cartoon, on tv. In this chapter, the main character visited an aquarium and he found that one of its turtles lived in complete misery. He then told what he had seen to his grandmother and they decided to take illegaly the turtle back to the ocean. In the scene that I show in this picture, both characters discuss wether it is correct or wrong what they were doing, and so the following diaologue takes place:

ARNOLD: But, grandma, isn’t it against the law?

GRANDMA: Against the law of the king perhaps, but against the law of common decency, I think not

This immediately made me thing about what Thoreau stated in his own essay, “Resistance to Civil Government,” where he expressed that the individual was obligued to act according to truth even though this was against the law of man.